


Fandom Stocking Fics

by chaila



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Luther (TV), Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The Wire
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-24 08:25:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/632405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaila/pseuds/chaila
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Includes fics for His Dark Materials (Marisa, Marisa/Asriel); Luther (John/Alice; John & Rose Teller); Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Ensemble; Sarah); and The Wire (Bunny Colvin & Stringer Bell)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. His Dark Materials: Etiquette and Atomcraft [Marisa, Marisa/Asriel]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Actions have their calculated effect. For cordialcount.

Marisa Coulter has always liked rules and laws, in a way, though to say so is much too simple. Rules are a defined set of expectations about consequences and behavior, based on an intricate but discoverable set of shared facts, assumptions or perceptions. So it is with experimental theology, so it is with the social rules governing society’s interactions. 

It’s most accurate to say she has always enjoyed dissecting those rules, pulling them apart to see their inner workings, until she knows every aspect of how they function, every assumption on which they are based, every consequence that may flow from adherence or transgression. Then she is free to use them, to manipulate them precisely as she chooses. Rules, as well as laws of the universe, when studied and understood, become a weapon, a sword and a shield. Like flying a gyrocopter at a cliff and knowing the exact last moment at which she can turn to avoid a collision, or knowing just where to aim a pistol at a certain size target in specific conditions to wound, or to kill. 

The same applies to the study of human behavior; the social rules and niceties interacting with the real human desires, producing a predictable response. Every gesture she takes, whether of kindness or cruelty, is calculated for a certain effect. She avoids the subject's strong points and exploits the weaknesses. Letting her hand linger on the sleeve of Lord Boreal; refilling an empty glass for Professor Frye; flattering Father Kiefer with feigned attention while he prattles on about his work. She can lean too close just so or say just the right thing to suggest or demand, convince or cajole or intimidate just as she chooses, push at the fear, appeal to the desire, spark the ambition, and so bend matter and people alike to her will. 

She goes out of her way to meet Asriel Belacqua because she expects him to be useful to her. He is known to be interested in the properties and behavior of Rusakov particles, though he has neither published nor lectured on the topic. She must know what he knows. When she hears that he is back from whatever Northern expedition he had been away on for so long, she arranges an evening party with the members of the Royal Arctic Institute and those with the money to fund it. However unconventional he may be, he won't be able to avoid attendance.

The party bores her, as most of them do, though she hides it well. It is the same at every social event attended by Magisterium officials, members of the Consistorial Court, and professors of the colleges. Like elementary particles attracted and repelled according to discoverable laws of behavior, the men in the room are wary of her, even condemn her, for her beauty and charm, while jostling each other to be next to her at dinner, their little dog demons practically panting, condemning her for what they themselves feel and think. No matter, she thinks, scanning the room for Lord Asriel among them. It’s simply a game and those are the rules; she can play a rigged game too, and win it.

He strides into the party abominably late, dressed all wrong, somehow too big for the space. He alternately speaks a little too loudly and watches the room disdainfully. He does not demand respect as the other men do, claiming the social niceties and flattery as something due him because of his rank or wealth or position; he simply acts as if he has it or as if he doesn’t need it. Marisa spends an interesting hour--perhaps the most interesting hour at one of these parties she has ever spent--watching him, sure he is laughing at them all behind their backs, as he drinks with the politicians and church officials and flatters them and coaxes them into funding his next exploratory trip.

He notices her watching him, as she intends him to do. The predictable consequence follows; he manages to seat himself next to her with a fresh drink. She introduces herself and he does not try to hide his contempt when she gives her last name. Rude and arrogant, she thinks, how shocking. 

"I hear you've been doing some groundbreaking work on Rusakov particles, Lord Asriel," she says, interrupting the small talk by inviting him with her eyes to ramble on about his work, as the male scholars of her acquaintance are so prone to do. 

He smiles rather enigmatically. "Not particularly," he says. "My expeditions are exploring many areas. Dust is only one, and far from the most interesting."

"I find that difficult to believe," she smiles. "Perhaps you'll lecture at our next symposium," she urges. 

"I think that unlikely," he says. 

"Why, we're waiting rather impatiently to hear your conclusions. I'm sure your contributions will expand our little knowledge of the phenomenon." Her tone has become rather sharp, she notices. 

“You are assuming I have findings to report, madam," he says curtly. "Excuse me, I think I'll get some air." He gets up as he's speaking, not waiting for her response, and walks out onto a balcony. 

Infuriated, she follows--is that what he intended? The weather is freezing and he wears no coat, but he seems not to notice. A northern explorer, she remembers; not just a scholar. Harder and rougher around the edges, and clearly proud of that. Perhaps a different tactic is called for.

"Why do you come to a party only to condescend?" she demands, opting for direct challenge. 

"For the same reason you come to flatter and wheedle, I expect," he says. “What is your interest in Dust?” he continues, crowding her against the edge of the balcony. It's a long drop over the edge. "I was under the impression that the Magisterium considered the matter of Dust an unsuitable subject for study. At least publicly. You are a member of the Magisterium, are you not? And your husband? I assume you subscribe to the orthodoxy."

"What is your interest in Dust?" she returns. "If the subject is so dull. Do your findings contradict the fact that it is the physical manifestation of original sin?" 

Something dark flares briefly in his eyes before his expression twists into disdain. "The physical manifestation of original sin," he scoffs. "I assure you, nothing could interest me less." 

He's very close now and she thinks about kissing him now, to throw him off balance, to gain the upper hand, or perhaps just because she wants to. 

Instead, she slips out of the space he has pinned her in. "Lord Asriel," she says formally, "If you'll excuse me." She turns and walks back to the party, feeling his eyes on her as she goes.

Two days produce the calculated effect. He comes by her house under the guise of borrowing a book of Edward’s. Such a flimsy excuse, as even by then, neither of the Coulters kept anything heretical enough to spark the interest of Lord Asriel. She plays along, as if anyone is watching, and leads him to the library. When she presses him against a shelf of books on the nature of original sin to better map the exact shape of his collarbone, she doesn't even notice the irony. She wonders what it would take to pull him apart.


	2. Luther: and picked the daisies fine [John/Alice]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holidays with Alice Morgan. For maharet83.

At the beginning of December, John starts finding the gifts. There is no pattern to their arrival. He finds a very old, very expensive looking Bible--Old Testament only--when he opens a desk drawer at work. A stuffed shark is on the sink in his bathroom in the middle of the night, though he knows it wasn't there before he went to bed. When he gets into his car to chase a lead, he finds an apple on the passenger seat, one bite taken out of it; it makes him smile, just for a second, before he remembers himself. There are no notes, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist--or an astrophysicist--to know who's leaving them. 

When he gets home on Christmas Eve, he finds Jenny dressed in sparkly red and the small flat aglow with Christmas lights and decorations--a tree, garland, the whole works. He is about to comment on Jenny's choice of decorations when she asks about his sudden attack of Christmas spirit, obviously believing that he had done it. She goes into the kitchen to stare into the abyss of the open refrigerator while he looks closer at the tree, under the guise of adjusting some lights. Tucked in between two branches, admist the red and green and silver, he finds two smaller ornaments that don't match the rest; a small Wile E. Coyote and a Roadrunner. He slips them into his pocket.

He is increasingly angry with Alice, teasingly breaking in and out of his life and space as she chooses, his work, his car, his home. He dumps all the taunting gifts in the trash. He finds them the next morning, under the tree. 

***

Neither John nor Jenny feels much like celebrating on New Year's Eve, but he convinces Jenny to go out with her friends. "But you'll be alone," she says in the tone she uses to mother him. He promises to call up some people and get out of the flat too. But there's no one he really wants to call. He tries to remember the last New Year's Eve he spent without Zoe or Ian, and he can't. 

Of course, when he comes to the bedroom just before midnight, figuring asleep is as good a way as any to greet the new year, he finds Alice sitting on his bed, a bottle of champagne and two glasses at her feet. She smiles. “Hello, John,” she says. "I hope you liked the gifts." She pops the cork on the bottle.

He knows she'll come and pin him down, like she always does, like her eyes are already doing right now, so he takes the initiative and crosses the room to sit next to her on the bed. Her smile is delighted, like she's just persuaded a furry animal or small child to trust her. 

"I missed you," she says.

“You can't do this, Alice,” he says angrily. “Come to my home, my office. Breaking in, sneaking around. You can’t.” He rubs one temple.

Her smile never wavers. She bumps her shoulder against his. "You’re a bit broody." 

He sighs. “Weren't you out of the country?”

“New Mexico,” she says. “It was beautiful. I listened to the dark space between the stars.” She leans in conspiratorially. “I thought of you.” 

He has nothing to say to this. 

“Since we're friends," she continues, "I’ve come to say goodbye, and to celebrate." She pours champagne into the glasses. "I've accepted a teaching position in New York. Quite a prestigious one."

She hands him a glass. "To the future," she says, raising hers. "And times gone by."

"Congratulations," he says rather flatly, imagining Alice Morgan teaching students. She'll be brilliant, he knows, which is what makes it disturbing. He clinks his glass against hers and drains it. 

She smiles, baring her teeth. She leans in close. "I thought about you while I was away. I've diagnosed your problem. Would you like to know what it is?"

"Not really," he says, tilting his head a little so that their faces would fit perfectly for a kiss, if he leaned forward.

He can feel her breath against his cheek as she delivers her judgment. "You want to fall," she says in her dangerous voice, "but you can't jump." She lifts three fingers to lay lightly against his lips, as if keeping him quiet, though he has nothing to say. "You've watched others fall though. That must have been . . .satisfying. Were you tempted to fall with them?"

He shivers, trying to hide it from her. He is torn between rage at her implication, and fear at her ability to rummage around inside his mind as easily as she apparently slips in and out of his flat. 

She smooths her hand down the front of his shirt, where his tie would be if he wore one. Her hand rises and falls with his shallow breaths. He can never get a deep breath when Alice is close. 

He doesn't know what jumping is if it's not sitting next to the knife's blade that is Alice Morgan. 

A sudden rush of noise floats through the open window, cheers from a party, horns honking in the street. It must be midnight.

He strikes preemptively. He leans forward to kiss her firmly. He feels and hears her little hum of delight, and a shock of cold fear shoots down his spine; anything that causes Alice Morgan such joy is surely cause for alarm. He rather expects her to tear and rip at him, doing the thing properly now the first step over the ledge has been taken, thinks that's maybe what he would like her to do. But she doesn't. 

She kisses him back, hard and long enough to make him feel a bit dizzy--does Alice get dizzy?--then she laughs. She smooths her thumb across his lips again. She kisses him one more time, tasting of champagne, and then she’s gone.

He half thinks he might have dreamt it. It's sort of comforting. Of course it’s troubling if he can no longer tell what's real and what's a dream, but on the upside, Alice Morgan as a dream seems a far safer proposition. 

When he crawls into bed he finds an envelope under the pillow. He rips it open to find a plane ticket in his name, one-way to JFK, and a note written in red ink: “When you’re ready to jump."


	3. Luther: Act III [Rose, John]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John Luther wasn't the end of her career. For thatyourefuse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With much thanks to runawaynun for discussing ideas and letting me steal them!

I.

On her last day as a police officer, Rose Teller doesn’t speak to John Luther. She spends an entire night trying to track him down, and then once he’s found, she’s not allowed to speak to him.

She hadn’t known when she got to work that it would be her last day. Her last two days, really, as it all went to hell with the murder of Zoe Luther, and then just kept going through the night and into the next day.

Everybody warned her about Luther. “He'll be the end of your career,” and “He’ll take everyone with him when he goes down,” they said, when she took him onto her unit when no other supervisor would, brilliant or not. “Nitroglycerin,” Cornish had said the last time, after Madsen.

They were wrong. John Luther wasn’t the end of her career.

No one ever warned her about Ian Reed.

II.

John shows up at her door a month later. “It’s me,” he says into her buzzer, with no further identification. She buzzes him in and cracks her front door.

She hasn’t been back to work in a month. They immediately put her out on administrative leave, after Ian. “It’s routine,” they said, which is what they always say in such situations. Like there’s anything routine about one of your men cooperating with criminals to profit from a theft, murdering his associate, murdering his best friend’s wife, framing his best friend, and then getting himself killed. 

Schenck had called her that morning and told her the potential charges of misconduct--deliberate indifference, specifically--against her were “unsustained.” Which isn’t the same as unfounded; it just means there wasn’t enough proof one way or the other. 

John pokes his head around the door experimentally, like she might be waiting to ambush him on the other side. “Teller?” he says.

“Come in, come in,” she calls from the kitchen. “Coffee?” She brings it to him before he responds. 

He takes the coffee and folds himself into one of her kitchen chairs. 

“You still out?” she asks, mostly to have something to say. If she’s on admin leave, he damn well better be too.

“Schenck called me this morning,” he says. “Said the inquiry’s over.” He looks at her for a long minute, like she’s a suspect he’s judging how to crack.

“Yeah,” she says flatly, offering nothing.

“He says you’re not coming back.”

“Well,” she says, “That was not his news to tell.”

“Come on, Boss,” he says, pushing back from the table and standing up. “You can’t go out like this. They can’t do this to you. Not because of . . . him.” He infuses the last word with the kind of disgust he usually reserves for murderers. Which, she reminds herself again, Ian Reed was.

“Oh, sit down,” she says sharply. “They haven’t sacked me. I’ve resigned. So there’s no need for outrage.”

He cocks an eyebrow at her, which does nothing to lessen the intensity of his stare.

“Sit down,” she says again. “Relax. I can’t talk about this with you glowering at me from on high like that.” The corners of his lips quirk into a hint of a smile. He sits. 

“They offered me a new position and I quit.” He makes a move to speak but she keeps going. “It makes me sick how we never admit mistakes, just reshuffle them to a different unit for a new start. The charges were ‘unfounded.’” She scoffs. “They offered me a transfer. I didn’t take it. I handed in my resignation a couple of days ago.”

He puts his face in his hands. 

She slaps her hand on the table; not hard, but sharply. “Don’t you dare,” she says. 

He snaps his head up. “Listen to me,” she says. “You do not get to take this. I know you think it’s always your job, your responsibility to stop the bad guys. The world rises or falls because of you.”

“I—“ he starts shaking his head.

“Well,” she cuts him off. “This one’s not because of you.” She softens her tone. “He was your friend and your partner. And I'm sorry for your losses, John, I’m so sorry. But he was on my unit, and my unit is my responsibility. You don't get to take this one off me.” She pauses. “Or him,” she almost spits.

There's a long moment of silence. 

“You done?” he asks.

“Are you?”

He sighs, relaxing his posture. He nods. “Yeah.

“Well,” she says, “I reserve my rights to start up again. Until then, why don’t you tell me how you’re doing?”

III.

Six months later, her phone rings, “Luther” flashing up on the display. She picks it up.

“Teller,” she says.

“Boss,” John says, “I could use your help.”

“No good ever came from those words from you,” she says absently, distracted by some movement at the building of the door she’s watching from her car across the street. 

When she left the force, she went home and moped about and stared at the walls of her flat—blank, because she never did get around to hanging up any pictures or art—and questioned several years of her own judgment. She can’t think of a single sign that she missed, that would have ever indicated what Ian would do. But then, she’d been watching John more often, relying on Ian to keep John grounded. But if there’s one thing she knew as an officer, it was that she could only do the best she could with what she knew at the time, and no more. She replayed what she now knows were critical moments, but finds nothing she could’ve done to stop any of it.

Then she got tired of hanging about the flat. 

She moved on.

Now she’s a few months into her new career as “Rose Teller, Private Investigator.” She's got the card and everything. It’s not as glamorous as movies make it seem. She spends a shocking number of hours furtively taking pictures of cheating spouses for high-stakes divorce proceedings and conducting routine background checks on other people’s job applicants. But she knew that going in. Besides, it has its perks. She learns a whole new side of London, seedy as anything she’s seen in the city before, but with a fake shine on it, conducted in fancy hotels and expensive restaurants. And as she builds a reputation, she’s getting more interesting things. Last week, she turned two jobs down. She’s got control over what kinds of cases she’ll take and, together with her pension, it pays the bills. 

“I won’t do anything illegal,” she says to John.

There is a long pause on the other end of the line. 

“John?” she asks.

“You won’t have to,” he says quickly. 

“We’ll see,” she says. “Tell me about the case.”


	4. TSCC: Five Family Holidays [Ensemble]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What it says on the tin: five family holidays. For streussal.

I.

John doesn't remember ever believing in Santa Claus any more than Jesus, or anything else, really. Make believe was never his mother's forte. 

The first year after the blown up computer factory, after his mother was ripped away to Pescadero, he was still only eight and he knew how to field strip weapons he couldn't even lift yet, but his foster parents were scandalized that he did not expect a fat man in a red suit to come down a non-existent chimney to leave him gifts. They weren't usually all that nice, but they still tried to make excuses for why Santa hadn't found him in previous years, and sure enough, there had been a little pile of boxes under the tree Christmas morning. Not much, but still. 

His favorite Christmas was the year after Cyberdyne--that's what they called it, avoiding direct reference to the returned machines and left-behind Pescadero and the dead Miles Dyson, just "Cyberdyne"--when his mom had covered their little apartment in tinsel and lights so old that he guessed they were left by the previous tenant. She piled a few boxes under a plastic tree, and he knew without shaking them that they would contain practical things like boots and socks. 

"Get bit by the Christmas bug?" he'd asked her when he'd seen it. She'd ruffled his hair, which he hated because he was 12. 

"No," she said, "Just feel like celebrating." She pulled him into a hug and he didn't fight it. "Just glad to have you back," she whispered into his hair. 

II.

James always spends Christmas in Atlanta with his brother's family. He hates the travel, hates the way the commercialization of the season starts at Halloween, but he still loves the holiday and the miracle at the center of it. 

He goes to elementary school winter pageants cheerfully and tumbles around on the floor with his nieces and nephews; when visitors make comments about being able to send them home with their parents when the sugar high gets too intense, he smiles and nods like he agrees that uncle is the best job. He skillfully evades everyone's questions about Lila. His sister-in-law in particular persists in asking hopefully if they still speak, until he tells her Lila has been remarried for two years. 

He plays Santa Claus at their Christmas Eve before midnight mass, trading his church suit for a fuzzy red one that's a bit too small, and watches the kids light up. Only his oldest niece notices his sudden absence from the family party and eyes him suspiciously later, making him feel unaccountably sad. 

When he leaves for home the day after Christmas, deflecting their pleas that he should take more time off work, they all makes promises to talk more, to visit more. He flies home to his empty apartment, where there's always a stack of files to get back to.

III.

Riley has never seen a Christmas, not really. In the tunnels, people keep up their private celebrations, Christmas and Hanukkah and so many others, but these are quiet, hushed affairs, conducted in circles of lamplight and marred by the faces that are missing. 

One night, just before they are to leave on their mission, on her mission, Jesse gathers Riley close, pulling Riley's head onto her lap and smoothing her hair back, like Riley's mother might have done, if she'd lived. Riley closes her eyes as Jesse tells her about Christmas, before, about warmly lit stores full of food and clothes and toys and books, pudding and mince pie until you couldn't eat any more, twinkle lights, the sound of carols under an evening sky. 

"It'll be just like that again," Jesse says, "When we get there."

Riley can't believe it was ever real. She falls asleep to the promises in Jesse's voice.

IV.

"Do you want to hear the story again?" Catherine Weaver asks Savannah and John Henry. It's Christmas Eve and Savannah is flushed with excitement, asking her to read "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" over and over again all day, claiming it is their favorite. Not for the first time, Weaver stops herself from arguing with Savannah about what exactly her favorite things are. The child's love for repetition is infinite.

"To visit every child on Christmas Eve," John Henry says authoritatively, "Santa Claus and his reindeer would have to travel 3,604 miles every second, and spend just 34 microseconds at every house. Such a task is not physically possible."

"John Henry," Weaver says sharply, "Perhaps now is not the time." These humans do cling to their stories, and Savannah's lips has begun to quiver. She still does not know quite what to do with tears; she prefers to avoid them.

"It's magic," Savannah tells John Henry, lifting up her chin.

"Magic," he repeats skeptically. About to continue, he stops as Savannah looks at him with her wide eyes, and Weaver turns to look at him with her cold ones.

"Yes," he says, smiling back at Savannah. "It must be magic."

V.

Jesse enters the church at midnight beside James, feeling profoundly uncomfortable. He had insisted on this one tradition, this one nod to his normality at Christmas, and Sarah for some unfathomable reason had agreed. Jesse and James sit in the corner by mutual assent, keeping their back to as many walls as possible and situating Savannah between them.

She and Sarah had flipped for it, deciding that it was safest for one of them to attend the service with James and Savannah and one of them to stand watch outside. Jesse had lost, so now she has to sit on a hard pew for an hour. She's got nothing against religion, but she knows how little it's going to help save any of these people. The service is in Spanish, which Jesse knows James really doesn't speak, even if he has been improving. Still, he seems to know when to sit, stand and kneel with the rest of the congregation. The kid is solemn and still, following James' lead; she never needs to be told to sit still, to be quiet.

Jesse remains alert. They are exposed here, all of them, and they have no idea. If she turned to look, she wouldn't see Sarah, but she thinks she can feel Sarah's eyes on the back of her head like crosshairs as everyone else kneels to offer prayers; Sarah, somewhere out in the darkness, unbelieving herself, guarding the door of the church for the believers.


	5. TSCC: So runs the world away [Sarah]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is it any wonder that the line between real and not-real seems ever harder to find, when her waking life bears so much resemblance to a nightmare? Sarah, post 2x16 "Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep". For a_q.

Sarah drives home through the dark streets, awake from her nightmare, escaped from the reality of Winston. 3 a.m. Everyone is asleep, blissfully unaware. They have no idea. 

The still-throbbing bullet wound in her thigh had reminded her of the limits of her body. If I nick it, you'll bleed out and die in less than four minutes, the doctor had said. Every night since, Sarah has woken up gasping, clawing for those four minutes.

Now she is terrified she's finding the limits of her own mind, her own ability to judge between what is real and what is not. Pescadero comes rushing back, constantly being told she had imagined the end of the world into existence, that it wasn't real and would never be real, drugged into submission until she had wanted to believe them. Wasn't it easier, if she was just crazy?

She knew she wasn't, or perhaps, pretended she knew she wasn't. After Kyle died, she had no one to tell her how to do this, how to stop it. But she had to do something; always, she must move forward, in one direction or another. All she's had to go on is her own judgment, the perceptions of her own mind, her own instincts. She's trusted herself, the one constant she could be sure of, because nothing else made sense. Now she has no foothold, no solid place to stand on. But is it any wonder that the line between real and not-real seems ever harder to find, when her waking life bears so much resemblance to a nightmare?

When she gets home, she stalks through the door, past Cameron--silent, watchful--at the window, walking like everything's fine, keeping her face averted. She owes the machine no explanations.

She looks in the mirror. She looks like a coyote herself, the blood of her prey smeared around her mouth. Her own blood, she remembers. Most of it.

Perhaps tonight was just a preview; monsters with the same face, coming back over and over. Having to kill them, over and over, always knowing that they'd never really be gone, that you'd see that face again. 

Her wrist is bleeding badly. She grits her teeth because she won't wake John and Derek will ask questions, and calls Cameron in to bandage her wrist properly. Cameron does, quickly and efficiently cleaning and wrapping it.

Cameron has someone else's face. Cameron is not real. Cameron is making her wrist hurt, but pain is not the barometer of realness that people think it is. They have no idea. Pain can be everywhere, waking and sleeping. 

Sarah lies down on her bed fully clothed. She counts in her mind as four minutes pass, and then again. She thinks she hears a coyote howl. Or did she imagine it? She does not sleep.


	6. The Wire: Fare thee well gone away [Bunny, Stringer]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fare thee well gone away  
> There's nothing left to say
> 
> \-- The Pogues, "The Body of an American"
> 
> For darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for season 3 of The Wire!

Stringer Bell looks like a politician in his coffin, all cleaned up and wearing an expensive suit for his mama, if she'd been alive, and his businessmen friends, who haven't quite untangled his double identity yet. Not that most of them would mind, whatever show of moral outrage the parasites would put on for each other, Bunny Colvin thinks, looking down at Stringer. " _Motherfucker,_ " he whispers, not even knowing why he'd come. 

It's hard to say you knew a man when your main run-ins with him were picking him up off corners when he was just a scrawny runner with hard, hungry eyes, book in his back pocket often as not. He'd been a slippery one, harder to peg than most. Even back then, he had a quiet way of commanding respect, earning a little bit of trust, before sticking in a knife, strategically placed between the ribs. As far as Bunny knows, no bodies had ever been pinned on him. At some point, no one, in the game or otherwise, dared suggest it. Stringer hadn't been above letting slip the precisely placed piece of information to the cops either, when it had served him--braver than the others, more defiant, or more able to see the whole board, the long game, or all of the above--though the street had never pinned that on him either. Russell Bell had risen quickly from the street, disappearing from view into the Barksdale upper ranks, a man rising in a rising organization, until he reappeared to Bunny in a graveyard, knife poised, reaching for the next rung on the ladder. Just as Bunny remembered him. 

Maurice Levy had arranged the funeral, executing The Last Will and Testament of Russell Bell, made with the lawyer and his secretary as witnesses. Funerals have long been a place to do business in the Baltimore drug trade, a gathering place for the powerful and the corrupt. In keeping with tradition, the Baltimore contractors and businessmen seem to be spending the service networking each other, glad-handing and closing deals, acting for all their world like they knew Russell Bell, like they've lost one of their own. But then, Bunny supposes, maybe that's how Stringer would have wanted it. _Just business._ Going on, as it ever had and ever would, world without end, amen.

No politicians present, he notes, nodding at Lester Freamon, sitting in a corner pew and appearing to look down at a program while sweeping the room with his eyes. 

"Major," says a voice beside him, and Colvin feels his mouth twist into a sardonic smile. 

"Not anymore," he says, turning to Jimmy McNulty, "As you well know, you son of a bitch." His tone is good-natured, if slightly forced; he bites back a crack about picking a dead man's pocket for probable cause and shakes McNulty's hand.

"It's unfortunate that we meet in these difficult circumstances," Jimmy says with false reverence. "Mourning such an upstanding citizen. A fine pillar of the community." 

Bunny bristles at the shit-eating twinkle in McNulty's eye. "This ain't no victory," he says.

"Major," Jimmy replies, a note of bitterness creeping into his voice, "Don't go speaking truth at a Baltimore funeral. The dead are likely to rise up from outrage." He smooths down his own cheap tie. 

There are no Barksdales in the room. Stringer's written wishes--dictated, perhaps, in a time of optimism about this future event--for this kind of public service had ensured that; the place is crawling with police, on duty and off. Apart from Freamon and McNulty, none of them acknowledge Bunny. Bunny finds himself hoping that the Barksdales had their own private memorial for Stringer; every man deserves a send-off. The man had made a mark, no denying that, had reached for more than most others. Or perhaps in the end Stringer had set himself too far apart, betrayed the code of those he had worked with, served and commanded so completely that they'd erased his loyal history and now did not even mourn his loss. _Looks like you and me both trying to make sense of this game_.

"Couldn't take the corner out of the boy," McNulty says. 

Bunny says nothing, and turns away.


End file.
